Title: Hybrid approach to enhance contrast of image for forensic investigation using segmented histogram

Authors: Sachin Dube; Kavita Sharma

Addresses: Galgotias University, Greater Noida, India ' National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India

Abstract: Digital images can be used in detection of various crimes, ranging from active to passive attack applications. To suit a particular attack application, an image needs to be enhanced and should have good quality in general for forensic investigation. For normal investigation use; vibrant, vivid and eye pleasing image is desired. In this paper, various existing methods and their drawbacks are examined. This information is then used to develop an approach for contained enhancement to retain natural look of image, enhance its quality to make it usable for evidence. Existence of a spike in histogram can result in Over-enhancement of image. Spike is created when a large no. of pixels are having small set of intensities. Ten most commonly used standard images are used for performance comparison. Proposed method outperforms compared methods in terms of PSNR and AMBE values, while keeping entropy and standard deviation almost similar to input image.

Keywords: image forensic; segmented histogram; image contrast enhancement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAIP.2019.099943

International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, 2019 Vol.13 No.1/2, pp.43 - 66

Received: 23 Aug 2016
Accepted: 15 Oct 2016
Published online: 29 May 2019 *

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